👋 Welcome back to The Daily Theory, our morning rundown to help you stay on top of your favorite sport. I’m Allen McDuffee, your guide to all things tennis.
On tap today, we’ve got: Emma Raducanu sends another coach packing, Venus Williams keeps us guessing, Carlos Alcaraz rejects the PTPA suit, Learner Tien takes on Joao Fonseca, plus more in tennis news.
Let’s tennis!
Three Points
🎾 Another one goes down: Emma Raducanu has fired another coach from her team. That makes eight in less than four years, by The Athletic’s count. This time, Vladimir Platenik — a former coach of Daria Kasatkinka, Lulu Sun, and Dominika Cibulkova — believed he was hired on a trial basis through Roland-Garros. Instead, the relationship lasted just a single match.
- What they said: “Emma has the utmost respect for Vlado and the work they started but it wasn’t quite heading in the right direction,” per an IMG rep.
- The message: When you switch coaches as often as Emma Raducanu does, often firing them after just a few weeks, the better coaches clue in pretty quickly as to where the problem lies — and their incentive to take on what is viewed as a problematic pupil plummets very quickly.
🎾 What is going on with Venus?: The short answer is: your guess is as good as mine. But there are a few interesting data points in the playing status of the 44-year-old, who will lose all of her ranking points at the conclusion of the Miami Open. First, we know about the Indian Wells wild card debacle. The BBC is reporting that she was then offered a wild card at the Miami Open and considered it before turning it down. And then, she turned up for a practice session with Ons Jabeur on Wednesday.
🎾 In the dark: Carlos Alcaraz made it clear on Wednesday that he doesn’t support the PTPA lawsuit filed this week, noting that he knew nothing about it ahead of time and only learned about it on social media. Although he didn’t come right out and say it, he seemed somewhat annoyed that his previous words were used in the legal filing without any warning by the PTPA to make their case.
- What he said: “Yesterday, I saw on social media that they put something I said in a press conference in the documents, and I wasn’t aware of it. I honestly don’t support that letter because I wasn’t aware of it,” Alcaraz said during press on Wednesday. “There are some things that I agree (with). There are some other things that I (don’t) agree with...But the main thing here is that I am not supporting that. So that’s it.”
And, that’s game.
What They Said
He’s such a good player, he’s so tricky. It caught me off guard, I walked on the court and I wasn’t used to that ball speed. It’s been a long road, even to get to the start line. To come off and get a win, to feel like I belong again, it’s pretty special. I thought I’d never play tennis again to be brutally honest with you. It was going that way. I’ve had conversations with my team, you know, guys who are leaving their families behind to try and get me on the court, and I was like, ‘I don’t know how long I can keep doing this for.’ But obviously this puts a bit more petrol in the tank. I need to be realistic, I’ll see how my wrist pulls up tomorrow because it is a grind out here.
-Nick Kyrgios on winning his first match since 2022 over Mackenzie McDonald.
Watch This!
🔥 Joao Fonseca vs. Learner Tien (1st round ATP 1000 - Miami Open): There’s a reason these two unseeded players are the prime time match on the stadium court. It’s a blockbuster rivalry that the tennis world is just learning about. While these two haven’t faced off yet at the pro level (save for the Next Gen exhibition), they know each other quite well from the juniors. It’s heavy hitter versus counterpuncher with punch. Expect Joao Fonseca to go for the big shots that earned him his first ATP Tour title this year in Argentina. And count on Learner Tien to hang in points long enough until he can make winners of his own — the very brand of tennis that has brought him top ten wins over Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev this year. More than anything, expect to enjoy yourself.
- The record: This will be the first tour-level match between Joao Fonseca and Learner Tien. But they’ve faced each other on the biggest stages of junior tennis before. In 2023, Tien defeated Fonseca in the final of Roland-Garros in three sets; the reverse happened later that summer in the final of the U.S. Open.
- On the line: Both players are looking to set the tone for what will be a continued rivalry for years to come. A win at a Masters 1000 event will be a big mental boost.
On The Radar
- Chris Eubanks vs. Reilly Opelka (1st round ATP 1000 - Miami Open)
- Coco Gauff vs. Sofia Kenin (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami Open)
- Sorana Cirstea vs. Danielle Collins (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami Open)
- Kei Nishikori vs. Yoshihito Nishioka (1st round ATP 1000 - Miami Open)
- Jordan Thompson vs. Marcos Giron (1st round ATP 1000 - Miami Open)
- Roman Safiullin vs. Jenson Brooksby (1st round ATP 1000 - Miami Open)
- Ashlyn Krueger vs. Elena Rybakina (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami Open)
- Gabriel Diallo vs. Tomas Martin Etcheverry (1st round ATP 1000 - Miami Open)
- Daria Kasatkina vs. Hailey Baptiste (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami Open)
- Naomi Osaka vs. Liudmila Samsonova (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami Open)
- Leylah Fernandez vs. Alycia Parks (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami Open)
- Taylor Townsend vs. Yulia Putintseva (2nd round WTA 1000 - Miami Open)
- Zizou Bergs vs. Nuno Borges (1st round ATP 1000 - Miami Open)
- Jan-Lennard Struff vs. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (1st round ATP 1000 - Miami Open)
- 📺 Learn how to watch today’s action over at Tennis Watchers.
Read, Watch, Listen
- Carlos Alcaraz still wants a piece of Novak Djokovic.
- Qinwen Zheng is learning how to deal with the ups and downs of life on the WTA Tour.
- Victoria Mboko, the Canadian teen, notched her breakthrough win in Miami.
- Ilie Nastase talks about what it means to become number one in the world: “You realize [what it means to be No. 1] only after you finish playing and people talk about you as a No. 1,” explained Nastase. “Today I feel great, because I achieved something, and I worked hard for it. When you are on the circuit, it’s something normal. You play, and you win, and it’s okay. But after you finish with tennis, people appreciate you more, and I like that.”
- Novak Djokovic enters a staring contest with a hawk.
- Eliot Spizzirri could have turned pro, leaving his college tennis career behind. Instead, he returned to Texas, but things didn’t go according to plan. Here’s what he learned.
